the commencement of this growth: therefore the nourishment can be only made by an absorption of the milky matter contained in the matrix. The placenta appears first to draw this nutriment, to convert this milk into blood, and to carry it to the foetus by veins. The liquor of the amnios appears to be only this milky liquor depurated, the quantity of which increases by a like absorption, proportionate to the increase of the membranes, and the foetus probably absorbs the liquor, which appears to be the necessary nutriment for its expansion. For we must observe, that for the first two or three months the foetus contains very little blood; it is as white as ivory, and appears to be composed of lymph which has taken some solidity; and as the skin is transparent, and all the parts very soft, we may easily conceive that the liquor in which the foetus swims may penetrate them, and thus furnish the necessary matter for its nutrition and expansion. It may be supposed that the foetus in the latter stages takes its nutriment by the mouth, since in the stomach we find a liquor similar to that in the amnios, urine in the bladder, and excrements in the intestines; and as we find neither urine nor _meconium_ in the amnios, there is reason to conclude that the foetus does not void its excrements, especially as some are born without having the anus pierced, although they had a great quantity of _meconium_ in the intestines. Although the foetus does not immediately adhere to the matrix, but is only attached to it by small external nipples, though it has no communication with the blood of its mother, but is as independant of her who bears it, in many respects, as the egg is of the hen that hatches it, yet it has been pretended, that all which affects the mother affects the foetus; that the impressions of the one act on the brain of the other; and to this imaginary influence resemblances, monsters, and especially marks on the skin of some children, have been attributed. I have examined many of these marks, and they all appear to me to have been caused by a derangement in the texture of the skin. Every mark must have a figure which will resemble something or other; but I am certain the resemblances so formed depend rather on the imagination of those who see them than on that of the mother. On this subject the marvellous has been carried as far as it could go. It has not been only said that the foetus carried real representations of the longings of its mother, but that, by a singular sympathy, the marks, which represent strawberries, cherries, &c. change their colour, and become deeper in the season of those fruits. With a little more consideration, and less prejudice, this colour may be seen to change much oftener, and that it must happen every time the motion of the blood is accelerated, whether by the heat of summer or from any other cause. These marks are either yellow, red, or black, because the blood